"In this context, the existence of marriage-like rights without marriage actually cuts against the existence of a rational government interest for denying marriage to same-sex couples. California's enactment of rights for same-sex couples belies any argument that the State would have a legitimate interest in denying marriage in order to preclude same-sex couples from acquiring some marital right that might somehow be inappropriate for them to have. No party has argued the existence of such an inappropriate right, and the court cannot think of one. Thus, the state's position that California has granted marriage-like rights to same-sex couples points to the conclusion that there is no rational state interest in denying them the rites of marriage as well." - San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer, in a ruling yesterday.

the logic of equality is so over-powering, and the arguments against it so fragile, that judges like Kramer are simply affirming the thuddingly obvious and the intellecutally honest.

can we agree that there is no argument to continue to keep a minority disenfranchised?

tradition? let's talk about the ban on inter-racial marriage.

procreation? let's talk about how non-procreative straight couples can get civil licenses.

non-procreative sex is immoral? let's talk about how non-procreative sex is the norm in traditional heterosexual civil marriage

the potential collapse of civilization?

can we once and for all accept that there is no moral difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality? it is ALL simple-minded fear and prejudice and religious conviction that have NO place in our courts.

Location: In a dimension known as the Twilight Zone...do de doo doo, do de doo doo...

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You won't get any argument from me, Irvine. Anti-gay marriage people are still entitled to their opinions, but it just amazes me we even have to have debates over the legalization of this to begin with. Equal rights-that pretty much says it all.

And all those wanting to label the judge an "activist judge" will just be making a fool of themselves. The judge not only has a strong record of dealing with the facts, but was appointed by a Republican.

(San Francisco, California) Supporters of same-sex marriage found an ally Monday in San Francisco Judge Richard Kramer a Catholic Republican appointed to the bench by a former GOP governor.

"We're certainly feeling the judge's decision is right," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose city's lawsuit prompted Kramer's ruling that gays and lesbians have the right to marry in California, despite a law and a voter-approved measure declaring marriage to be the exclusive realm of heterosexuals.

Opponents of same-sex marriage immediately declared that 57-year-old Kramer is a judicial activist whose decision was "ludicrous" and "nonsense."

"We knew Judge Kramer was under tremendous political pressure to redefine marriage, but we were hopeful he would recognize the limited role of the judiciary," said Robert Tyler, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney trying to uphold California's traditional marriage laws. "We do not believe it is appropriate for judges in this setting to overturn the will of the people."

With a 27-page stroke of the pen, Kramer did just that.

"The parade of horrible social ills envisioned by the opponents of same-sex marriage is not a necessary result from recognizing that there is a fundamental right to choose who one wants to marry," he wrote in the decision, which won't be enforced for 60 days, to give opponents time to appeal.

Lawyers who have practiced before Kramer said the 1972 graduate of the University of Southern California Law Center is among the top judges in San Francisco, and is unswayed by public opinion.

"I think he does what he thinks is right," said Robert Stumpf Jr., who settled a class-action lawsuit for $6.7 million before Kramer last year while representing Wells Fargo.

The bank was accused of illegally selling customers' financial information. Stumpf said Kramer steered negotiations between the bank and plaintiffs attorneys for a year. "His proposal was legally sound and practical," he said.

Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Kramer in December 1996, when Kramer was specializing in bank litigation.

Kramer had made a name for himself in the legal world in 1992, when he successfully defended Bank of America in a class-action lawsuit in which the bank was accused of illegally freezing credit-card interest rates around 20 percent between 1982 and 1986. First Interstate and Wells Fargo, also plaintiffs in that case, had settled for a combined $55 million, but Kramer the lawyer took the case to trial and prevailed.

Nancy Hersh, a San Francisco-based class-action lawyer, said Judge Kramer "listens carefully to both sides. His reasoning is excellent and he has great attention to detail."

"He's not irrational or unreasonable," added Hersh, whose plaintiffs sued Imperial Premium Finance. The Sherman Oaks insurer agreed to provide 30,000 customers with $35 coupons to be used to pay their premiums after Kramer ruled the company was illegally holding onto customer refunds.

Kramer declined to be interviewed for this story. But he gave a sense of how dedicated he is as a jurist in a 1999 interview with the San Francisco Daily Journal, a legal trade publication.

While he said he sought out a judgeship so that he could spend more time with his wife and daughter, he said he spent his first months as a criminal court judge reading the Penal Code cover to cover and driving through crime-ridden neighborhoods in San Francisco to get a sense of what was happening in the community.

"It's all fascinating to me," he told the Daily Journal. "What you have to do is figure out what the person did and what to do about it. And most of these cases require common sense and humanity."

Originally posted by melon And all those wanting to label the judge an "activist judge" will just be making a fool of themselves. The judge not only has a strong record of dealing with the facts, but was appointed by a Republican.

you've got to wonder how Fox News is going to spin this one ... what Karl Rove-approved labels are they going to be able to slap on this judge?

Originally posted by Irvine511 you've got to wonder how Fox News is going to spin this one ... what Karl Rove-approved labels are they going to be able to slap on this judge?

They'll ignore the facts and call him an "activist judge" anyway. Fundie groups already have called him one.

It's no wonder criminal suspects are killing judges now. The Bush Administration has pretty much defined an "activist judge" as anyone who disagrees with them. This President is destroying the judiciary just to play politics.

Well the truth is, there never was a debate. It was people trying to enstill THEIR religious beliefs, upholding tradition, or just plain hate. None of which should hold up in court, unless of course...well I won't get into it.

I wonder if the state has any particular reason to deny additional tax breaks and other benefits to singles, polygamous families, or incestuous couples. If not, then following Kramer's logic, the state must celebrate singlehood, polygamy and incest. Or it could just eliminate marriage altogether, leaving private organizations to perform ceremonies and print licenses which carry symbolic but not legal meaning.

If the state wishes to evaluate marriage solely as a list of rights and benefits and not as a popularly determined model for the nuclear family, then I believe the two options above make the most sense.

Originally posted by speedracer I wonder if the state has any particular reason to deny additional tax breaks and other benefits to singles, polygamous families, or incestuous couples.

Blah blah blah. The Canadian Justice minister made a good point about this ridiculous argument. Incestuous marriages and polygamy are denied across the board to everyone, while marriage is solely limited to heterosexuals. That's where the discrimination is, folks.

If people are genuinely afraid of a "domino effect," then write an amendment that bans incest, polygamy, bestiality, etc. But that won't happen, because the argument is generally a thinly veiled veneer to cover up contempt for homosexuals. Period.

Utah's "Defense of Marriage" act actually made polygamy impossible to prosecute, because they were using common law statutes to define polygamy, as most of these men were legally married to one of their wives and not the rest. Most of these amendments successfully void the idea of "common-law marriages." Like I said, it's about homophobia, not "protecting" a damn thing.

Blah blah blah. The Canadian Justice minister made a good point about this ridiculous argument. Incestuous marriages and polygamy are denied across the board to everyone, while marriage is solely limited to heterosexuals. That's where the discrimination is, folks.

Well, I could rephrase your statement in the following (ridiculous, demeaning, but logically sound) manner: nonincestuous, nonpolygamous, heterosexual marriage is open to everyone. Homosexual marriage is denied to everyone, as are incestuous marriages and polygamy.

I'd bet that there is at least one man in America who wants to marry his sister, and only his sister. I imagine he is not happy to be told that there are people besides his sister that he can marry, just as gay men are not happy to be told that there are people besides men that they can marry.

My point is that the legal rights of marriage do not just apply to certain categories of relationships; they apply to individual relationships as well. If marriage is nothing more than a set of extra rights, it seems discriminatory to deny the protections of marriage to any relationship.

If, on the other hand, marriage is some ideal of society, then it is best to argue that gay marriage is good for society, and that it should be placed on an equal footing with heterosexual marriage for precisely this reason. If I understand Judge Kramer's ruling correctly (I'm reading the entire text of the decision right now), it seems to me like fool's gold.